After my recent griping on grocery prices, my pal and fellow Team 4all teammate, Morgan from Life After Bagels, offered to write a guest post on the topic. She sent it at the perfect time, since it turns out I have suddenly been struck by the illness of demons. While I wallow in my misery, please check out her fantastic post! 🙂

Hello Faith Fitness Fun Readers! My name is Morgan and I blog at Life After Bagels. I'm one of Tina's 4all by Jofit team mates 🙂

Today I've got a post for you about: GETTING THE MOST OUT OF YOUR GROCERY BUDGET. In January, I left my career and decided to go back to school full time. Luckily my boyfriend is amazingly supportive, but going from two incomes to one has forced us to be super smart with our pennies (Canadian pennies you may notice!)

Whether you've been forced into a tight budget situation, are wanting to find a way to save for something, or are just worried about the rising food costs, here's some sure ways to reduce your costs.

• Make your coffee at home. This won't slash your grocery bill actually, but you're going to save a lot if you make coffee at home. We are a two cup a day type of family so we have our morning coffee with our handy dandy coffee pot, and the second cup from Mr Tim Hortons or Mrs Starbucks.

• Trade something homemade for something packaged. We like our Cliff bars, Luna bars, Larabars, but those were the first thing to go because they were the most expensive for the least amount of food. Every Sunday I make muffins. Healthy muffins that is. It takes about 15 minutes to whip up a batch. I make sure to include oats or oat bran, nuts, and dried or fresh fruit or veggies. They get individually wrapped and put in the fridge or freezer and we take one per day for our lunches.

• Trade eggs for flax meal substitute. When I hosted the Vegan For A Week challenge in February I was forced to try using flax meal instead of eggs in my baking. NO LIE - they work perfectly. Since I do a lot of baking and cooking (mostly muffins and pancakes), I have entirely substituted eggs for these uses. Now we only use eggs for eating eggs! Whisk together 1 tablespoon of flax meal and 3 tablespoons of water and let sit for about 10 minutes. Warning: don't whisk too hard!

• Cook a whole chicken. I'm a vegetarian, but Brad eats some meat. Every once in a while we cook up a (very small) whole chicken and he uses it to add to stir fries, burritos, sandwiches for a few days. Much cheaper than just buying chicken breasts.

• Make your own broth. You probably don't want to do this at the same time you're making homemade soup. Plan to do it just once a month and you'll have your own broth for weeks. One box of organic veggie broth usually goes for at least $3.99 in my neck of the woods.

• Make your own soup. Now that you've got a freezer full of broth, you're ready to go. We used to buy one jar of butternut squash soup per week that costs $7.99, that's crazy!

• Make your own tomato sauce. This started way before our budget got tight. After our grocery store stopped carrying our favourite sauce we couldn't find one that was low in sugar and salt, while also tasting good. I make 3-4 batches at a time and throw it in the freezer too.

It might seem like this will create a ton more work for you, but it barely adds to my overall food prep. Just make sure you do big batches and you'll be using your supplies for weeks. The additional benefit to making a lot of these regular grocery items yourself, is that they're way more fresh and way healthier. We're not hermits though, don't worry! And we do treat ourselves sometimes so here's a couple more saving money food tips:

• Go out for lunch or dinner in a group. Depending on how many friends you can get together, call the restaurant and ask if they offer a group discount.

• Walk to get your take out. This isn't really an option for us because we have no car. It's either walking or delivery and delivery is expensive. The local pizza places in our neighbourhood offer walk in specials so find out if yours does too.

Now you've got some great ideas to slash your grocery and food budget. I hope you'll visit me at Life After Bagels and you can email me any questions at morgan.shuker AT gmail.com .

Thanks, Morgan! Now you tell me – what ways do you like to save?

I know what I want to write about for my post today, but can’t get a natural way to segue into it all. So – Hi! How are ya? Thanks for visiting! Let’s get to it! <— That covers it, right?

Second Workouts
I started my day at the gym with a Group Power / Bodypump class. After my rest day yesterday, I felt ready to go and upped my weights on quite a few tracks (squats, back, chest, lunges, and shoulders). I always like to reasonably challenge myself. It’s fun! 😉

Then, this afternoon, I had my second run of the week planned. The weather cleared out from this morning so I managed to head outside. It was a little chillier than I like, but I guess that works for running. I did a 4.33 mile run in 41:27. I’m ready for this weekend when it finally warms up again! And I get to run with Lee.

Second Helpings
For dinner last night, I pressed and cubed a package of extra firm tofu. Then, I tossed it with 1/3 cup of my favorite BBQ sauce. I baked up the tofu squares for 20 minutes in a 400 degree oven and then made the wrap of my dreams. Avocado, spinach, tomato, a spread of blue cheese, pickles, BBQ tofu, and a drizzle more BBQ sauce.

It only seemed right that I had a second helping for lunch. I really ate the rainbow with this lunch. Red tomatoes. Orange carrots. Yellow mango. Green spinach. Purple grapes. Beige hummus. And blue?? Well, my water bottle rounded out the colors.

Moral of the story? You must make this incredibly simple and flavorful wrap!

Second Chances
A few of you have asked me if I have any update on the friend situation. In fact, I do. On Tuesday I had a very strong and sudden urge to let my friend know what I had been thinking and feeling. Before I knew it, I had hit send on an email to her with all the details and signing off I would call her later to talk about it all.

Well, we talked it out like mature adults and both have felt that connection slipping. We realize that we have both faced a lot of life change recently that likely impacted our friendship. We also know we don’t want to just walk away. So…here’s to second chances! We’ll see how it all turns out now that the air between us has gotten some clearing.

And now, to continue with my seconds theme, I think I need a double portion of dessert tonight. I love my logic! 😀

Question of the Day – Have you experienced any “seconds” lately?

And another question – How do you get the little graph with the person running on it that shows your distance/elevation/etc that I see on some blogs?